New DEA Chief Revises Statement on Cannabis vs. Heroin

Published
August 6, 2015

The new head of the Drug Enforcement Administration made waves in cannabis circles last week when he said marijuana is “probably” not as bad as heroin, indicating that there might be some doubt about the issue.

Rosenberg, who was installed after former DEA chief Michele Leonhart resigned in May, said that he should have cleared up his stance last week when discussing cannabis, the Huffington Post reported. He added that he believes marijuana is still “harmful and dangerous,” but not nearly as much as heroin.

DEA agents should also focus on “the most important cases in their jurisdictions,” Rosenberg said, which usually have to do with “heroin, opioids, meth and cocaine, in roughly that order, and marijuana tends to come in at the back of the pack.”

Rosenberg’s stance is becoming the norm in Washington DC, where high-profile politicians of all stripes are advocating for a change in drug enforcement priorities – if not straight-out reforms when it comes to cannabis.

His latest comments also serve as another sign that officials are starting to view marijuana slightly differently than other drugs the government has traditionally considered extremely dangerous.

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The DEA should take cannabis/marijuana/hemp out of schedule I as it clearly is not as dangerous as the others and around 30 states recognize it has medical use. If it has medical use it does not belong in schedule I. The DEA’s own law judge Francis Young in 1988 after extensive hearings called cannabis one of the safest therapeutic substances known to man and recommended removal from schedule I.